Lilypie Third Birthday tickers

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The girls continue to make progress each day. They moved from the ICU portion of the NICU to the intermediate care last Wednesday and last night they moved from the intermediate care to the last step, "continuing care nursery". They both are gaining weight slowly and Addison got to move out of her isollette into an open crib yesterday. Riley needs a few more days of steady weight gain before she gets her open crib. The main road block in the way of them coming home is the feeding. The need to be able to nipple all of their meals on a consistant basis. Addison is taking 41 ml of expressed breat milk and Riley is taking 37ml. Addison was able to nipple 10ml today with me feeding her and Riley did 13ml with the nurse earlier in the day but only did 5ml with Jesse feeding her. They both have a hard time eating when they are tired. They need to be fully awake otherwise they don't take much from the bottle. The remainder of their milk is fed through their feeding tubes. The nurses work with the babies more in the continuing care nursery rather than always feeding them through the feeding tubes like the nurses did in the intermediate care nursery. I hope after a few weeks of trying, they will be able finish all of their milk and be ready to go home.I have to go back to work after 8 weeks after my delivery and I'm just worried that I won't get much time with them at home. The doctor today said they may still be in the hospital for another 3-4 weeks. That shocked me, but I hope the girls prove the doctors wrong.

1 comment:

It is a slow process, but you'll get there! We started out only feeding Micah 10 mls a feeding, then he went up to 15 mls a feeding when he was 3 days old, and then we slow worked up to 30 mls a feeding. He was nearly 2 weeks old before he could take 45-60 mls at a feeding. It also took Micah a full week to be able to take all of his feeds by bottle/breast, and it took us until about 7 weeks that I didn't need to supplement some of his feeds with a bottle because breastfeeding alone was too hard/exhausting for him.

So, I guess I'm saying that he had a few weeks on your girls, and it took him a while to get the hang of eating, too, but a lot can change in a short time. Hopefully, they'll grow rapidly stronger every day, and they'll come home sooner than the doctor anticipates, and they'll be taking all their feeds by bottle. I hope you can get some good quality time at home with them before you have to go back to work. - Tess

About Me

My name is Amy and I am a divorced mama of twin girls This blog tracks our lives and struggles with infertility, pregnancy, and the premature birth of my twin girls. My twin girls arrived almost 2 months early weighing 4lbs 6 ounces and 3lbs 12 ounces. They had a month long journey in the NICU and now they are big and healthy. This blog is dedicated to the events in our lives so our girls can look back on how far they have come.